Saturday, July 19, 2008

Weekend Edition

Vignette: Life Online

A Little Story About the Internets in Six Lines, by michael5000.
(This vignette appeared previously in the Indigo Mouse comments.)

michael5000: See these [fabrics in the catalog]? I know the person who designed them!

mom5000: Oh, really? How cool! Who is that?

m5k: Her name is, um, Indigo Mouse.

mom: “Indigo Mouse”?

m5K: Well, I don’t know her real name…

mom: So, you know this person pretty well, then?



Meme Duty

Speaking of Indigo Mouse -- fabric designer, ace knitter, and keeper of the eponymous blog -- I picked the following bookish meme up from her last week. Here's her version... and it looks like frequent L&TM5K commenter Rebel took the plunge as well. (Congrats to I.M. as well on her latest project!)



1. One book that made you laugh: Anything by Richard Russo – especially Nobody's Fool – makes me roar with laughter. Mrs.5000, who reads the same books with a wistful and thoughtful air, occasionally feels that she is somehow missing out.

2. One book that made you cry: Update: I remember a book that made me cry! Charlotte's Web! Third grade.


3. One book that you loved as a child: I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy six or seven times over the course of middle school. But then, you probably did too.

4. One book you've read more than once: David Lodge's Changing Places.

5. One book you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Depends on the crowd. I'm sometimes shy about reading science fiction, for instance, but in a different setting I might be a little embarassed about reading the classics. Here's the one that affects me most often: more and more, I've become very fond of my Bible reading project. But, it can feel kind of weird to settle in for a little Bible study down at the coffee shop.

6. One book you hated: I have only read the first chapter of The Da Vinci Code, but the holistic putridity of those first few pages offended me enormously. I am not, of course, referring to the blandly controversial religio-historical content; I didn't get that far in. I'm just talking about the writing. If I had been handed the manuscript, I would have not only dismissed it as obviously unpublishable, but would have kindly but firmly advised Dan Brown to find a new hobby. This is, I guess, why I'm not in publishing.

7. One book that scared you: There was a Ripley's Believe it or Not book of ghost stories that I read voraciously one day when I was a kid. TOTALLY freaked me out. Was scarred for years.

8. One book that bored you: Oh, all of the books in my academic discipline. This is why I am no longer an academic.

9. One book that made you happy: The recently-reviewed King Dork by Frank Portman. Cracked me up.

10. One book that made you miserable: Something Happened by Joseph Heller.

11. One book that you weren't brave enough to read: I'm not brave enough to read Finnegan's Wake. Yet.

12. One book character you've fallen in love with: Can I go with Helena Bonham-Carter as Lucy in the film adaptation of Room With a View? (Second place would go to Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia in the Mel Gibson adaptation of Hamlet, except of course that Ophelia is barking mad. But maybe if she'd met me first....)

13. The last book you read: An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks.

14. The next book you hope to read: Beowulf, baby!


Now, I'm not one to put people on the spot by inflicting memes on them individually. On the other hand, DorkFest 2008 is only a few months away....

[Update: Nichim plays ball!]

[Further Update: Kate also plays ball!]

If You Could Live Anywhere...

Earlier this week, the featured image on Wiki was of a pair of posters drawn up during the great heyday of the Gin Craze in England. The artist's intent was to contrast the wholesome, industrious drinkin' on "Beer Street" with the moral perils of drinkin' on "Gin Street."

This made me think: Where would the good readers of the L&T rather live?


On Beer Street?






Or on Gin Street?





Wherever you live and drink, dear readers, have a fabulous weekend!

7 comments:

Yankee in England said...

Well not six or seven time in middle school but more times in my life than most "normal" would probably admit to Lord of the ring trilogy reading in their lifetime.

Rebel said...

Dude... I couldn't get past the lengthy descriptions of Weathertop hill, and gave up the trilogy completely!


So no love for Helena Bonham-Carter in "Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix?" ;)

Anonymous said...

Am I in the right section to add a Helena Bonham / Room With a View comment? A bit confused here. Hard to keep up with the agile M5K. I loved the scene toward the end when Denholm Elliot tells her she has been living a lie all along. Beautiful.

Anonymous said...

1. Anything by P.J. O'Rourke
2. No book has made me cry. Now a dog dying in a move...
3. A Wrinkle in Time
4. I've re-read so many books it's pitiful. I'd say I've read Blood Meridian 10 times and will likely read it 10 times again.
5. Anything by Patrick O'Brian. (However I'm not particularly embarrassed by it. Pleasure in reading material in entirely subjective, much like music. For instance, I dislike jazz).
6. A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Execrable.
7. The Amityville Horror. Pig eyes in the window. I think I was nine though.
8. The Gulag Archipeligo. I know I'm supposed to care but my god. It took weeks to get through.
9. A Walk In the Woods, Bill Bryson. I read it every year before backpacking season. I'd like to hike with the guy.
10. The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich (see also The Gulag Archipeligo above).
11. Remembrance of Things Past. I'm saving Proust for retirement. I'll read it right after I learn French.
12. Lux in The Virgin Suicides.
13. Henderson The Rain King, Saul Bellow.
14. MK5 The Blog King.


I'd like to live on the corner of Vermouth Street and IPA Avenue.

d said...

i've read LOTR once every year ever since i was 12.

one the surface gin street looks way more fun than beer street, but gin makes people angry and violent, so i 'm gonna vote beer.

Chance said...

I did this meme a while back, here in this post. Warning: liberal use of F-bombs before the meme starts.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for playing! This little meme has had me beefing up my "to-read" list on Good Reads. (I'm a little behind in my blog reading as you can see.) Also, I totally didn't know you had a non-quilting blog. Duh.

I'm totally with you on The DaVinci Code. I actually reviewed that one a couple years ago, though most of the review won't make sense if you didn't finish it. http://indigomouse.net/?p=53